Enjoying the Spoils of Christmas

Darren left for Serbia on the 27th after spending nine weeks at the MTC.  We spent the day anticipating Darren's phone call and were somewhat disappointed as a busy travel day at the airport resulted in our only being able to talk to him for 15 minutes.  He was excited to finally leave for Serbia.  We received an e-mail from him the next day confirming that he had arrived (see the post at http://www.serbiamission.blogspot.com/).

After the call, the girls left to get pedicures and Tyson and I went to the gun range to try out my Christmas present.

Updates on Darren

We created a new blog to provide updates Elder Novakovich's.  The blogsite is http://www.serbiamission.blogspot.com/ and a link titled "Serving in Serbia" in now included on our list of blogs.

He is doing well and in his most recent letter he commented on a conversation by a couple of elders comparing the MTC to prison.  One Elder replied that the difference with prison is that you get to watch TV.  Darren seems to be enjoying his prison sentence so far.

Weekend in Dixie

Would you rather sit at your desk for three days continuing to make sure that the debits equal the credits or golf 54 holes of golf in mid-70s weather in St. George, Utah?  That was the question I faced once again and for the fourth straight year decided that golf sounded more enjoyable.  We enjoyed three fantastic days of golf, playing Thursday at the new Sand Hollow Golf Resort and Friday and Saturday at Sun Brook Golf course. We were one of 43 teams playing in the Dixie Celebrity Classic held annually the first week in November.  The first day was a special sponsors round and didn't count towards your overall score.  We played Friday and Saturday and posted a score of 25 under par, which put us in a tie for 19th place.  The winning team finished at 39 under and was led by Jay Don Blake who played on the PGA tour and now golfs on the Champions Tour.  Our celebrity was Cory Snyder who played collegiate baseball at BYU and followed that up with nine years in the majors playing for Cleveland, Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

MTC Day

What a wonderful experience the last two days have been.  Yesterday we met as a family for Darren's setting appart as a missionary in the Slovenia / Croatia Mission.  As a father, it was humbling to join in and place my hands upon Darren's head as our Stake President set Darren appart and promised some wonderful blessings to Darren.  We are confident he will be a wonderful missionary as he has been a wonderful son and brother.  We were able to share this spiritual experience as a family.  It was particularly touching to see Camryn's love for her brother as she shed tears during the prayer, knowing that she would not have her big brother with her for the next two years.

 We shared a last meal in Provo at California Pizza Kitchen.

We arrived 10 minutes early for our 1 pm scheduled drop off time and all agreed that the Lord wouldn't get him until that time exactly.  The temple grounds were full of missionaries already in the MTC and newly arriving missionaries and families waiting for their appointed times and saying their final goodbyes.  I think it was comforting to Darren to see all of the other young missionaries with their familes, ready to transition from their typical teenage lives to dedicated servie.  While a lot of tears were shed, we know that Darren will grow through his service and our family will be blessed.  With the Lord blessing us with such a wonderful son, it is ony appropriate that we return him to the Lord on loan for this period of time.

As we pulled curbside, Elder Novakovich was met by three smiling missionaries who welcomed him and helped him unload his bags.  We were able to give our final hugs, give our Elder some letters that had been prepared and say goodbye.  One of the smiling missionaries noticed that Tyson was in the back seat crying and asked if he wanted to give Darren a hug.  Tyson hadn't shown any emotion this whole week, but as we unloaded the car, he cryed and cryed.  He loves his big brother and will miss him.

Pre-Mission Family Time

We took the family to our first Real Salt Lake Soccer (hard to call it "Futbol" in the fall) match a few weeks ago.  A couple of things struck me as we entered the stadium.  First of all, what a beautiful facility they've built.  Second, there two goals sitting on each goal line.  I thought, what a great idea.  If the goalie has to defend two goals, there should be more scoring and associated excitement.  I was disappointed when after warm up, they took one from each end off the field.  The result was as you might expect, a 0-0 tie until the 66th minute.  Other than this mild disappointment, we really enjoyed ourselves (mainly because we didn't have to run up and down the field like the players).   RSL went on to win the match 2-0.  

We were amazed and entertained by the enthusiasm of the fans, particularly the Latin American fans who threw confetti in the air, played their drums (the entire match) and cussed the players in the their native language.

Powell Time

It has been over a year since our last visit to Lake Powell. Even the kids, who are normally ambivalent to boating trips, we're extremely exited to go. For the first time, all four of them were anxious to try wake boarding which was music to Kristi's ears. It kills her that for so many years, she was the only one interested in wake boarding or water skiing.

This afternoon, all four of them strapped the board to their feet and Darren, Taylor and Camryn were all able to get up and stay up. We'll get Tyson out of the water tomorrow! We spent a big part of the day exploring canyons around Dangling Rope. One of our favorites is Cathedral Canyon which has some great rock formations and narrow passageways to explore. As usual, the weather has been great this week and we've been able to enjoy good water. We started boating on Tuesday and will hit the lake each day through Friday. Our good friends, Bart and Kyleen Plante and their kids came with us and are pictured in several of the pictures.

Yuba Lake

A couple of weeks ago we took the family and a couple of Darren's friends boating to Yuba Lake. We don't go there often (perhaps it is the perpetual wind) but wanted to go somewhere other than Jordanelle. Other than the windy conditions, we had a good time wake boarding and tubing. We tried out a new tube - pictured. The kids loved it.